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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22779154">Cosmonaut of the space between our chairs | Cartographer of the tangles in your hair</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/unimole/pseuds/unimole'>unimole</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route Spoilers, Fluff, epistolary in parts, fear the deer!, unabashed romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 15:35:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,805</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22779154</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/unimole/pseuds/unimole</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I would kiss you,” he said, “but I’m afraid I’d never be able to leave.” His voice was so plaintive, so un-Claude-like in its earnestness, that Byleth nearly laughed, from surprise more than anything.</p><p>“You shouldn’t leave. You should never leave.” Then she changed her mind, reluctantly: “But I know you need to. Go. Go away. Begone with you.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester/Hilda Valentine Goneril, Marianne von Edmund/Raphael Kirsten, My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan, Petra Macneary/Lysithea von Ordelia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>99</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Cosmonaut of the space between our chairs | Cartographer of the tangles in your hair</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Nothing but fluff here, fairly unapologetically! I love the Golden Deer house generally and Claude/Byleth specifically, but felt that the game was getting off on being withholding in regards to epilog details, so here we are now! The other tagged pairings aren't particularly prominent; I still wanted to mention them in case you're one of the many people who despise Hilda/Lorenz.</p><p>(Trust me, I totally understand if you do. I myself have a complicated relationship with Hilda/Lorenz, because Lorenz really fucking sucks but I also love him a tiny bit. I contain multitudes.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey, Teach.” Claude tried his best to force his voice into its normal tone and timbre. “I meant what I said.”</p><p>He took Byleth’s hand, splaying its fingers, and pressed his own palm to hers. The ring he’d slipped onto her finger glinted in the rising dawn that had begun to bleed through the stained glass windows in the Goddess Tower, painting the stone floor a mosaic of blue and red and gold.</p><p>“I’ll be gone for a bit, but, before you know it, I’ll be here at your side again. We’ll see the world together. A better world. Really, you didn’t think you’d be getting rid of me that easily, did you?”</p><p>Byleth laughed at that, a slightly quavering, watery laugh that made a dull thud of pain reverberate through Claude’s chest, and set her pale green gaze on him.</p><p>“Better not,” she said. “Or me and my wyvern will come track you down.”</p><p>Claude feigned a wince.</p><p>“Well, you can tell Estrid from me that her services won’t be required. I’ll be back before you even notice I’m gone.”</p><p>“I highly doubt that.” Byleth’s face shifted through a variety of complicated expressions before eventually settling on a wry smile. “But as long as you’ll come back at some point, I’ll allow it.”</p><p>“Allow it, huh?” Claude grinned. “I see you’re taking to your upcoming crown as a crayfish to the pond. Your Majesty.”</p><p>His heart soared with the eye roll and badly suppressed smirk his words elicited. It made him feel more normal, more grounded, like they were just having their every-day banter over a cup of tea.</p><p>“Like you’re one to talk,” Byleth retorted. “With your royalist ambitions. But… I support you. Of course. Always.”</p><p>Claude ran a hand through his hair, suddenly a little sheepish.</p><p>“I know you don’t really want to be ruler, but—”</p><p>“But I’ll still do it for the world. For that better, less divided world. For…”</p><p>The ‘you’ was left unsaid, but Claude could hear it echoing through the tall valved ceilings of the tower, as clear as day. Their hands still touched palm-to-palm, he threaded his fingers between hers and squeezed.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <hr/>
</div><p>Claude’s grasp, so unremarkable really and yet so insanely remarkable after what felt like an eternity of unvoiced pining, scorched Byleth more than any dark magic spell had ever scorched her. But she didn’t even blink, folding her fingers down and locking them together with his, intertwined. With her free hand she reached down into her pocket and, after minimal rummaging, produced a black leather pouch.</p><p>“It’s funny,” she said. “I came here hoping to give you this.”</p><p>She handed it to him, pouch and all, and tried not to feel too grievous a loss as he, after a final squeeze, dropped her hand to extract a ring from the pouch.</p><p>“It was my mother’s,” she said when Claude didn’t immediately say anything, rushing to fill the uncustomary silence. There was never silence when Claude was around. “My father told me that I’d one day meet the person I wanted to spend the rest of my days with. Someone I’d love as much as he loved my mother. And—”</p><p>“Sounds like great minds think alike, Teach.” Claude tore his eyes from the ring and smiled as he looked up at her. “I’m afraid the one I gave you doesn’t come with as good a backstory. Means the same thing, though. I love you, with all that I am. I want to spend the rest of my days with you and only you.”</p><p>He gave her the ring back so she could slip it onto his finger.</p><p>“It’s going to be very hard, not having you around,” she said in a voice that did not project as loudly as she wished it to.</p><p>“You’re telling me! Those five years before you came back… they were hell for more than one reason. I’d gotten used to your dopey face.”</p><p>“I’d gotten used to your stupid braid.”</p><p>Claude gave a small laugh.</p><p>“I’ll keep that in mind for when I return. And I will return, and it will be sooner than you know it. You won’t even have time to start missing me.”</p><p>“Claude, I’m already missing you.”</p><p>“Well, hey, I—” He sighed. “Yeah, same here, Teach. But I promise it will be worth it.”</p><p>Byleth just nodded once, tracking her eyes across him: his golden skin, his dark hair, his green eyes. Like if she could just memorize him enough, maybe his leaving wouldn’t hurt quite as much. His broad shoulders, his ready smile. All the other little things that make up a person, like the way he stretched with his arms folded behind his head when he was purposely aggravating Ingrid or the hard set of his face when Lysithea had told them about the experiments. She reached out and touched his skin, his neck, unable to stop herself.</p><p>“I would kiss you,” he said, “but I’m afraid I’d never be able to leave.” His voice was so plaintive, so un-Claude-like in its earnestness, that Byleth nearly laughed, from surprise more than anything.</p><p>“You shouldn’t leave. You should never leave.” Then she changed her mind, reluctantly: “But I know you need to. Go. Go away. Begone with you.”</p><p>He touched his fingers to his lips and then to her forehead.</p><p>“Write to me,” he said.</p><p>“If you write me back.”</p><p>“Of course I’ll write you back, Teach; I’m wounded you’d even ask. Don’t I always write you letters for your birthday?”</p><p>“You call those little notes letters?” She tried not to smile. “They’re barely two sentences apiece.”</p><p>“Two heavily labored-over sentences, I’ll have you know. I put my heart and soul into those things. Besides,” he added cockily, “I know you treasure your birthday notes. I know you keep them carefully folded in your bedside drawer. With the Golden Deer bracelet.”</p><p>Carefully tucked between the pages of her journal, actually, but close enough. Byleth shrugged.</p><p>“Guilty as charged.”</p><p>He smiled at her for a beat before reiterating, “Write to me. Tell me how you’re doing. I promise I’ll write you back.”</p><p>“Then I promise I’ll write.”</p><p>“Did you know,” he said as he began to make his way toward the door, “that I wrote you a letter for every year you were missing? Every birthday.”</p><p>“You what?”</p><p>Byleth tried to imagine Claude at a desk, either the small, very untidy one in his dormitory room at the Monastery or a larger, grander one back at his home. Claude leaning down over a sheath of paper, penning letters to a girl presumed dead. The image slipped away from her, sinuous as an eel. She couldn’t quite square it with the Claude in front of her — the very idea made her throat ache like it was being pierced clean through. She opened her mouth to say something, but her vocal cords seemed to work against her.</p><p>“I guess I never truly believed you were gone. Not for real. I always thought you’d come back to me.”</p><p>“And I did,” she finally managed to get out. “The moment I woke up.”</p><p>“Just like I’ll come back for you. Take very good care of yourself, Byleth, for now. I love you.”</p><p>“I love you, too,” Byleth echoed, struggling to absorb this new reality crashing into her old, tracking the wide planes of Claude’s back and the yellow gleam of his armor as he disappeared beneath the doorway’s arch.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <hr/>
</div><p>On the long, boring way back to Almyra, slumped in the back of an anonymous carriage with an assemblage of anonymous faces, Claude closed his eyes and allowed himself to dream. What if he’d said fuck it, he could leave tomorrow; what if he’d taken her face in both of his hands and pressed his mouth against hers? He imagined her soft lips parting in a gasp, her fingers digging into his back as she pulled him closer. A step further: skimming his hands over her breasts in some skimpy undershirt, feeling her nipples pebble at his touch. His leg pressed between her legs, his teeth testing the tender side of her neck. His imaginary self leaned back and met her gaze, laughing silently at her frustrated expression before rearing back in and shoving his hands up her top. Byleth’s fingers furiously working to undo the stays of his trousers, dipping down to — no, he couldn’t let himself go there. Not here. Not on this carriage. He suppressed a groan, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <hr/>
</div>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Hi Claude.</p>
  <p>I think this is the first letter I’ve ever written to you. I suppose I don’t write a lot of letters in general. I never know what to write. If I write ‘How are you?’ I’m not getting a reply anyway, at least not immediately, and then I’m just blathering on about myself. But I guess that’s just the nature of letter writing, so here we are. Blathering commencing.</p>
  <p>It’s been a whirlwind here, but everyone sends their love. I don’t know if you would have heard somehow, but the coronation was a few days ago and I’ve barely had time to sit down since. You know how we used to… I was going to say mock, but maybe that’s a strong word. Oh, alright: mock. You know how we used to mock Seteth for clucking around Lady Rhea like she was made of porcelain that might crack to pieces if she sat down wrong? Well, guess who’s porcelain now? I only just managed to get rid of him by telling him that Hilda has been slacking on training and needs another instructive fairy tale read to her, though I suppose she’ll never forgive me for that move. Maybe if I beg very nicely. Anyway, I escaped to the greenhouse. Good luck finding me behind this gigantic lily, Seteth!</p>
  <p>Oh, Ashe just stopped by to do some gardening. Maybe I’m not as hard to find as I thought. He said to give you his best. I’m kind of surprised everyone’s sticking around. I guess it hasn’t been that long, but you’d think they’d all be well on their way towards their futures as knights and painters and princesses and whatnot. But, no, so far nobody’s even making plans to leave, at least not within my hearing. Leonie told me that Jeralt would have wanted her to stick by my side — I guess that’s fair. Actually, I think it’s more like I’m her last living link to him, but I’ve made sure that a portion of the budget will be delegated to her village. Anyway (and, Claude, you didn’t hear this from me) Seteth has been making eyes at her and I think she’s making eyes back. They’ve been fishing together every waking moment, it’s all very sweet. How weird would it be for Flayn to have Leonie as a stepmother?</p>
  <p>I imagine you’d want the gossip. That’s the key to this letter-writing business, isn’t it? Should have thought of that from the start. Well, Sylvain and Ingrid are doing their thing, as usual. It’s either going to end in marriage or one of them killing the other. My gold is on Ingrid, of course. You barely ever see Marianne anymore, not because she’s not around but because she’s nearly always enveloped by Raphael’s gigantic arms. They keep giggling about this inside joke about some bird, it’s enough to make you want to puke from cuteness. No, I’m just jealous. Not of either of them, you understand... Well, you take my meaning, I hope. What else? I thought Lysithea would maybe get together with Cyril (they spent enough time together during the war, didn’t they?) but now from what I gather there might be two princesses in Brigid’s future. <strike>Maybe not for too long, but I can’t let myself</strike> Who would have guessed?</p>
  <p>Oh no. I hear the dulcet tones of Hilda and she’s complaining of a very vain sardine who wasted its life admiring the reflection of its scales in the pond surface. I assume that means Seteth is back on the loose. I’ll leave you here, but know that I am ever yours.</p>
  <p>With all my love,</p>
  <p>Byleth</p>
</blockquote><div class="center">
  <hr/>
</div><p>In a large envelope, weighty with sheets of good quality paper, Ignatz sent on some pictures he’d drawn of Byleth’s coronation: quick sketches capturing the ceremony; a posed picture of the entire Golden Deer class; a full-color portrait of Byleth in her new regalia. In the pencil sketches, bending on one knee and inclining her head to accept the crown or turning to cast a glance over her shoulder toward the viewer (well, toward the artist, really, Claude supposed), Byleth looked serious and a little uncertain. Her face was set in determination and her arms hung awkwardly along her sides like she didn’t know what to do with them when not wielding a sword. Then, flipping through the pages, Claude came upon an image of her smiling, waving and his heart dropped with yearning. ‘I told her I was sketching for you,’ a line beneath the picture read, and, from that point on, she looked happier in every picture. Radiant.</p><p>The portrait of Byleth looked more official, somehow, like it had been commissioned by someone, though Claude supposed it couldn’t really have been if Ignatz sent it off to him. Perhaps it was more like a discarded draft for a future painting. It was incredibly, surprisingly detailed and very lifelike — Ignatz was a better artist than Claude had remembered; knighthood would be a waste of his talents. Someone, maybe Hilda, must have done Byleth up a bit for the ceremony. Her lips in the picture shone softly coral, her pale green eyes were fringed in blacker lashes and emphasized by shadow, and her hair fell in gentle waves around her neck, far from the choppy layers Claude was accustomed to. Or maybe it was just artistic license. Either way, Claude knew he’d been right all those months ago: the Goddess herself couldn’t be as lovely as their own Teach.</p><p>The Golden Deer reunion picture was great; Claude wished he could have been there. Everyone was grinning, surrounding their former professor, slinging arms around the shoulders of their comrades or throwing out peace signs. Even Marianne was smiling, arm in arm with a laughing Lysithea. They’d all scribbled comments in the margins, too. Hilda’s large lazy scrawl pointed to an empty space next to the group and read ‘Insert Claude here’. Beneath someone else, maybe the artist himself, had added ‘And Ignatz!’. Ingrid’s tidy cursive told him that she missed him; Sylvain — of all people! — had amended that they all missed him, the ‘all’ underlined twice. A wisp of pencil, barely denting the page, asked Claude to tell his wyvern hello from Marianne. Someone who could only have been Raphael had written something close-on indecipherable and left a greasy thumbprint on top of it. Lorenz had just put ‘Best wishes from Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, House of Gloucester’ but that was Lorenz for you.</p><p>The corner of the page just read ‘I love you’. Claude’s eyes traced the curve of each letter for longer than he would have liked to admit.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <hr/>
</div>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Teach,</p>
  <p>You’re right, I’m not very good at writing letters, it was more of a scheme to get you to write to me. It worked, right?</p>
  <p>Claude</p>
  <p>P.S. Just kidding. Enclosed, as penance, find a vial of a little something I cooked up in one of my few spare moments. Is it going to explode? Who knows?</p>
  <p>P.P.S. I don’t think it will explode (and if it did, I guess you won’t be reading this letter!) but word to the wise: stay far away from the person you’re using it on. Far, far away. No, further than that. It’s not dangerous, by the way. You could use it on a certain green-haired gentleman whose name we won’t mention here.</p>
  <p>P.P.P.S. Petra and Lysithea???</p>
  <p>P.P.P.P.S. We’ll have our own inside jokes about birds in no time, and they’ll be better. Two words: <span class="u">bigger birds</span>.</p>
  <p>P.P.P.P.P.S. I love you, too.</p>
</blockquote><div class="center">
  <hr/>
</div><p>Though people — Flayn with her romance novels, for instance, pointing to 'actual textual evidence' in hopeful tones — often described falling in love as a gradual process, like submerging yourself in a nice, warm bath, Claude remembered the very moment he knew that he’d fallen for his professor with abrupt and startling clarity. Less a gradual understanding; more like hurling yourself into the Northern Fódlan seas.</p><p>Sylvain had just switched over to their class, about two moons into the semester. He’d done so expressively with the intention of getting closer to their hot teacher — Claude supposed Hanneman just wasn’t up to snuff — and though he’d managed to talk an exasperated Ingrid into switching alongside him, he’d had no compunction about sitting down backwards on a chair, folding himself over the backrest and openly leering at poor Teach. Claude remembered the accompanying soundtrack of Ingrid’s pointed sighs as if it were yesterday.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Claude had snapped. Snapping wasn’t like him. Sylvain clearly didn’t think so either and he turned and looked at Claude with some astonishment before directing his attention back to the front of the room.</p><p>“Enjoying the view. What else?”</p><p>Thinking back, Claude could almost see it in front of him, as if he were watching a play with actors onstage: Sylvain, smirking and winking. His own face set in a frown. Ingrid leaning on an elbow, her cheek smashed against her hand, every minute blink of her eye a dissertation on various kinds of contempt. Teach pausing in her lecture on brigand tactics to look over at the group.</p><p>“Any questions?” she had called.</p><p>“Just whether I could take you out for dinner tonight,” Sylvain replied so smoothly it defied all belief that the conversation wasn’t somehow scripted. “You, me, a bottle of something — just the three of us.”</p><p>He shot her his second most devastating smile — the one even Claude had to agree could send your heart a-thrill — but Teach just held his gaze, unamused, until he looked away awkwardly and then started the lecture back up.</p><p>“Don’t be such an asshole,” Claude had admonished Sylvain after class was over.</p><p>“What?” Sylvain was busy letting his eyes trail up the stocking-clad legs of a departing student. Ingrid knocked into him with a sharp elbow as she barrelled off; Claude gladly admitted it gave him a bit of pleasure to see Sylvain doubled over, clutching his midriff.</p><p>“Don’t be such an asshole. I don’t know what the Blue Lions are like, but we don’t act like that in our house.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” Sylvain looked genuinely uncomprehending.</p><p>“To Teach.”</p><p>“Oh, right.” He straightened back up and gave Claude a measuring look. “What, you’re gonna pretend like she’s not the hottest chick around?”</p><p>Claude said nothing, at a rare loss for words.</p><p>“What, are you in love with her or something? Protecting her dignity! Like a valiant knight!” Sylvain struck a pose apparently supposed to suggest chivalry, with a half-bent knee and his fist thrust into the air.</p><p>“That’s not what I’m—”</p><p>“You really gonna stand her and act like you wouldn’t love a little bit of private tutoring? Get real, von Riegan. All the guys and half the girls in there were thinking about the same thing. Don’t hate me ‘cause I have the balls to go for it.”</p><p>He punched Claude playfully in the arm and strode off, his every movement languid and easy while Claude stood stiff as though bolted to the ground.</p><p>Just that moment — that very question — threw into sharp relief every confusing and half-buried feeling Claude hadn’t had time to contend with over the past couple of weeks. Memories and emotions shifted and coalesced. The way he didn’t exactly used to love getting up in the morning, preferring to sleep in as long as he possibly could, but how recently he hadn’t been late to class even once. One day he’d even found himself in his seat before Lysithea had arrived. The fact that, no matter how full the dining hall was, say, or how crowded the marketplace, his eyes always seemed to find her, as if she were outlined in gold. How, when he came up with a new idea for a strategy or stumbled upon the formula for something entertainingly toxic, he always wanted to go see Byleth and tell her about it. The particular way in which his stomach seemed to swoop and drop when he ran into her unexpectedly, not unpleasantly yet not exactly pleasantly either: a sort of nervousness that raced up the length of his spine. Claude didn’t get nervous, not really. Nervousness had no place in the lives of schemers and tacticians. So what was it?</p><p>Unbidden images leaked into his mind like a boat taking in water; any attempts to stop them proved fruitless. Byleth’s pretty face — he thought he could fairly objectively admit that she was pretty. That didn’t have to mean anything. Then again, her smile and the way it made his heart soar (a cliché, yes, but there it was) when it was directed at him… that pointed more toward it meaning something. Byleth at the front of the blackboard, scribbling on it and talking with a confidence that commanded the entire room. Her sly smirk when she listened to him detail some plan or another and the short nod of confirmation that tended to follow: a stamp of approval that meant possibly more to him than any stamp of approval ever had.</p><p><i>What, are you in love with her or something?</i> Sylvain’s words were clattering around Claude’s head even now, long after the speaker himself had left. <i>No, that’s absurd</i>, he rejoindered, trying to get his brain to quieten down, and there it was. Claude was not easily beguiled: he could tell a lie from the truth with no great effort; after all, he was himself quite skilled at guarding secrets, not to mention wheedling them out of others. When you’re an accomplished secret-keeper, with all the half-truths and straight-up dissembling that comes with the territory, you learn how to recognize lying, like recognizing like.</p><p>Claude was lying to himself. He knew it as soon as his denial of Sylvain’s jibe entered his mind.</p><p>“Hi, Claude,” said Byleth as she came out of the classroom, all of Lysithea’s probing questions on magical theory presumably dispensed of for the day.</p><p>“Hey, Teach.” Had he heard? Did she know? If she did, her face betrayed nothing. Claude wasn’t the type of guy to feel uncomfortable generally speaking but now his entire body pulsed like an exposed nerve. Like his skin had been peeled off with a vegetable knife; like he was made of glass and she could see through him straight to the throbbing fist of his heart. “Good stuff today.” He tried to will his voice not to shake.</p><p>“You, too. I liked your point on cavalry axe dynamics.” She smiled a slightly shy smile — Claude’s heart seemed to throb an extra beat just for emphasis, leaping and settling somewhere just beneath his throat. “How about tea?”</p><p>It was something they did once a week or so, not quite a tradition but close to it: a cup of tea and some scones, talk of reliable allies, books they’d read recently, that kind of thing. Well, they were house leader and professor, respectively. Why <i>shouldn’t</i> they meet up occasionally and talk about class? And if the topics sometimes veered away a little from actual class concerns, what was the harm?</p><p>But today, there was no way.</p><p>“Sorry, Teach, can’t make it.”</p><p>Did she look disappointed? She did, at least a little bit.</p><p>This was bad. Claude didn’t <i>want</i> to be in love; he did not, as such, see the use of it, and yet he wanted to pummel Sylvain for leering, set fire to anyone and anything who had ever hurt Byleth. Burn it all down. But he couldn’t let his mind get consumed like that. He had ambitions far more wide-reaching than nailing every lady in the perimeter of the monastery or marrying a fellow noble to solidify power. Getting obsessed with some, with some girl — it wasn’t in his plans. But, then, Claude noted on reflection — he prided himself on being brutally honest with himself, if with no one else — of course the problem was that it wasn’t just some girl. It was Teach.</p><p>But over the years it started mattering less and less or, maybe more accurately, Claude’s ambitions and plans began to morph and change. They began to make space enough for a sword that could split a mountain in two, and then enough for the woman wielding it.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <hr/>
</div>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Dear Claude,</p>
  <p>I can’t believe you sent me a vial of poison like that.</p>
  <p>I mean, without instructions? Am I supposed to put it in his food? Throw it at him? Hide it at the foot of his bed?</p>
  <p>Come on!</p>
  <p>No love,<br/>
Byleth</p>
</blockquote><div class="center">
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</div><p>“It was just a harmless flirtation!”</p><p>“Manuela, they’re <i>students</i>.”</p><p>Byleth paused outside the open door to the faculty room, steeling herself before crossing the threshold. She’d long since stopped hoping that a faculty meeting could ever manage to take place without her first having to dismantle an argument between Professor Hanneman and Professor Manuela, but it somehow never got less trying. Byleth’s colleagues noted her arrival with nods, but did not otherwise stop fighting.</p><p>“Young Ferdinand’s been showing a keen interest in poetry, and—”</p><p>“Ah, that’s the thing, though, isn’t it: ‘young’. It would be one thing to yearn for a student if you were, say, her age—” Professor Hanneman jabbed his thumb in the direction of Byleth— “but, Manuela, you could be his mother.”</p><p>“That’s wrong,” Byleth half-muttered. It had been directed to herself, not the rest of the room, but Manuela, on the precipice of total explosion, paused.</p><p>“Yes, it is, isn’t it, dear?” She turned toward Byleth and beamed down on her. Byleth, confused, tried to smile back. “Maybe, <i>maybe</i> his older sister. Never his mother.”</p><p>“Oh, no,” Byleth hastened to clarify, perhaps somewhat unwisely. “I meant it’s wrong to flirt with or, uh, yearn for a student. I’d never do that.”</p><p>Manuela proceeded to explode.</p><p>Sothis’ derisive laugh echoed through Byleth’s mind, though she couldn’t quite understand why.</p><p>“So self-righteous,” the voice in her head rang. “And yet… Why did you go to the Goddess Tower on the night of the ball? You know who you wanted to find there.”</p><p>Byleth squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to let a face drift to the forefront of her mind: the same face which had floated there when she’d thought about who she might like to meet at the Tower. The same face that had popped into her mind when her father had given her the ring. A tan, green-eyed, laughing face. A wink and a braid, an outstretched hand, inviting her to dance. Manuela and Hanneman’s argument had reached the point of abject screeching, but Byleth couldn’t make out a single distinct word.</p><p>It wasn’t fair. She truly didn’t think it was fair. Sure, she’d accepted the position as professor — well, technically she’d had little choice. Still, she had to admit she enjoyed it a lot. She liked the Academy with all its facilities and the cats and dogs that roamed its grounds; she generally liked the various missions they were dispatched on; she liked being part of a group, a larger group, instead of just one half of the Ashen Demon and Blade Breaker duo. She liked teaching, which was something she never would have guessed. She liked her students in the Golden Deer house, yes, <i>all</i> of them, and she’d choose to ignore that derisive laugh when it started back up again, thank you very much. There were a lot of things to like about her job, if you could call it that.</p><p>Still, couldn’t they have prepared her a little better? Anyone could see it was ridiculous to just thrust her into the role and hope she’d make do! Having never attended anything even close to an academy herself, she had little concept of how students interacted with their teachers generally speaking, nevermind what the expectations were for teachers interacting with students. You’d have better luck trying to get the plants in the greenhouse to advise you than getting that Seteth guy to give you any tips on how to succeed as a professor: he did not even pretend like he didn’t want Byleth to fail. How could nobody — not Manuela, not Professor Hanneman, not Lady Rhea herself — have even so much as mentioned a code of conduct? The closest thing she’d gotten had been Seteth’s vague threats not to bring shame upon the Academy, which honestly seemed to begin and end with mock battle performances.</p><p>She didn’t have to be told, of course, to understand that you should try not to fall for your students, even if they were roughly as old as you thought you were. And if you did…?</p><p>Byleth let her eyes fall on Manuela and Hanneman whose shouts were reaching a cymbal-crashing, eardrum-blasting crescendo yet showed no signs of abating.</p><p>And if you did, she told herself as she took a seat at the long table and rested her face in her hands, if you did fall for a student anyway, you’d have to make a promise to yourself not to act on it. She’d never, ever act on it. She’d never let on, no matter how much she secretly yearned.</p><p>Sothis' voice once again flooded her mind: “You fool! You oblivious fool! Oh, you <i>do</i> frustrate me so!"</p>
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<p></p><blockquote><p>Byleth,</p><p>Instructions? What do you think I am, some sort of amateur? Plausible deniability is the name of the game, my friend!</p><p>You’ll never be a true schemer at this rate!</p><p>Love (what is this ‘no love’ nonsense?)<br/>
Claude</p><p>P.S. Since you so rudely turned down my gift of instilling fear in your enemies, have these old scraps of paper instead. Judith told me in not so many words to clean up my room or get out. Nobody has any respect for an artfully arranged mess around these parts.</p>
<p></p><div class="center"><p>---</p></div><p>Hey Teach.</p><p>Happy birthday. Today you’re — well, I guess I don’t know how many years old for sure.</p><p>Where’d you go? After the battle. Don’t worry, it’s a rhetorical question. Lorenz just came over to call me a fraud, as he does, and asked what I was writing ‘so uncharacteristically diligently’. When I told him, he just rolled his eyes and scoffed at me. One day, he’ll roll those things straight out of his skull.</p><p>I know most people don’t think you’re still alive. All your Golden Deer get gooey-eyed and shaky-voiced when the subject comes up, but joke’s on them. Right? Sure wish you’d give me a sign or something, though. But I choose to believe you’re still out there, somewhere, and that you’re gonna come back.</p><p>I kind of have to believe that.</p><p>Claude</p>
<p></p><div class="center"><p>---</p></div><p>Teach,</p><p>I miss you. I still think you’re out there — I don’t know where, but somewhere — and I still think I’ll see you again. But I wish it was now. ‘Some day’ could be in ten years, or it could be tomorrow. Either way, it’s too far away.</p><p>Sorry, I’m feeling sappy, I guess. Old pop passed away, so I’m back in Derdriu for now, trying to right this ship. It’s a little… lonely. Yeah, it’s lonely, I’ll admit it. I miss Garreg Mach, I miss the Golden Deer. I miss the Daphnel Stew in the dining hall and all the cats that were always gathering in random places like they were plotting something. I miss that cheerful guard who never had anything to report. I miss every book in the library, even the boring ones about weapons diplomacy or whatever that Ferdinand never used to shut up about. But most of all I miss you.</p><p>Hey, Teach. Come back soon, won’t you?</p><p>Claude.</p>
<p></p><div class="center"><p>---</p></div><p><strike>There are so many things I wish I had said that I never said.</strike> Sorry, Teach, getting maudlin here. Happy birthday.</p><p>
    <strike>I love you. Please return.</strike>
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</div><p>It was honestly close to being the end of all things. A man with a black mask covering the lower half of his face rushed toward Byleth, eyes squinting, narrowing, glinting above the stark line of the dark metal. He seemed to be moving in slow motion, but Byleth knew he wasn’t really — she was just so hyper focused on him possibly being the last thing she’d ever see that she somehow registered every inch of him. He swung his sword in a wide arc over his head; the blade glinted just like his eyes as it cut through the low evening sun. Byleth was backed up against a fortress wall. The Sword of the Creator laid exhausted and useless at her side, and though one arm clutched her best axe to her chest, the other hung at a wrong tilt in front of her. She bled copiously if diffusively: her blood cooled in great shocking red puddles on the dusty ground, but she could not entirely ascertain from which wound it flowed. Probably not just one.</p><p>At the outset of the battle, morale had been cheered by Hilda’s battle cry and clinking armor as she charged into the fray and the whinnies of Leonie’s steed, so in tune with her that they might have been telepathically communicating. It had been bolstered by the sharp twang and punch of Ignatz’s bowstring pulled taut, by the heavy steps of Raphael, by Lysithea's and Marianne’s drilling incantations. Now, hours later, the battlefield lay too quiet. Even the consistent new pouring of Empire soldiers didn’t make much sound. The friendly noises of Byleth’s comrades had long since ceased and she could only pray to the higher powers she intermittently believed in that she couldn’t hear them because they’d retreated.</p><p>She’d sent her wyvern home, fearing for its safety, and so she had no real recourse but to wait for the charging soldier to reach her. In only a few, interminable seconds, he was in front of her, leaned over her, she fancied she could spy his leer even behind the mask and feel his meaty breath on her face.</p><p>“Hero of Fódlan.” His words were barely intelligible but the mocking intent was obvious enough. He didn’t just cut Byleth down where she stood. That would have been too easy, wouldn’t it? Too kind. Instead, sword by his side, he grasped her by the front of her cloak and lifted her up on her toes before crushing her back against the wall, taking a step forward to secure her body with his.</p><p>Byleth might not have the strength to fight back, but she did have enough strength to mouth “Fuck you.” Summoning every last bit of spirit she had, she drew her head back and spat in his face: a single drop of saliva trailed down his cheek, perfect as a tear. The soldier paused for a second, surprised, then, clearly enraged, slammed her body back into the wall one more time for emphasis. The side of her head careened into the stone and she hissed with the pain of it.</p><p>“Shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “You’re gonna live to pay for—”</p><p>The volume levels on the battlefield had been steadily increasing over the past few minutes, but Byleth had barely even noticed until she was suddenly made aware of its source. One moment, the man was clenching her tight; the next, he was slumping over her, his body covering his. Her first frenzied thought that he was throwing himself closer to bite her or kiss her or something worse ebbed away as she saw the arrows piercing his back. His near-dead form juddered on top of her as another one saw its mark.</p><p>And behind him, a silhouette appeared against the setting sun, leonine and haloed as it flew toward Byleth. Claude gripped the soldier’s body and threw it to the side, quickly and smoothly dismounting.</p><p>“Teach,” he greeted her almost conversationally, then, more urgently, added “Byleth,” a hint of panic edging his voice. She watched as his gaze tracked over her, taking in the blood (there must at this point surely be more of it outside than inside her veins, she thought to herself) and her busted arm and her fatigue. She closed her eyes and opened them again only when he shook her by the shoulder. The non-busted one.</p><p>“Can you stand?” he asked. She’d never known him to sound so worried and it almost made her smile.</p><p>“Of course,” she said, not knowing if it was true but finding that it was when she tried. Behind Claude, it looked like the tides had turned: there was at least one Almyran soldier for every Imperial one, and they zipped around the field, picking their enemies off.</p><p>“Great. Come here.”</p><p>“The students…”</p><p>“Are fine. My men sent them back to the monastery. A few cuts and bruises, but you know them. They’re tough.”</p><p>He began to help her onto his wyvern. Byleth, for once, let herself be helped. He carefully set her down just in front of the saddle, holding her safely in place as he mounted it. The wyvern’s neck undulated beneath her as it began to ascend, thick ropes of muscle expanding and contracting with each beat of its wings. She’d ridden wyverns ever since she first passed that certification exam years ago, but how strange to suddenly not be the one in the saddle.</p><p>“You holding up, my friend?”</p><p>She was, just about, but something nagged at her, a sudden twinge of insufficiency. What would Jeralt have said if he could have seen her in this situation? She’d always prided herself on being able to handle whatever mess she got thrown or threw herself into. This feeling of helplessness was new to her and she did not care for it.</p><p>“Yeah, but... “ How best to phrase it? How best to phrase anything when you were bleeding like a struck beast and might never regain use of your sword arm, the way things felt? “I don’t need to be rescued.”</p><p>In this one instance, that was clearly not true, and it was a dumb and pointless thing to say, anyway, but Claude took her seriously. She could feel him nod against her shoulder.</p><p>“I know. Of course I know! One of my most treasured memories of you is the first time I saw you and you practically sprinted across the battlefield to protect me and Dimitri and Edelgard from an axe-wielding maniac.”</p><p>He pulled her body closer to his, wielding the reins of his wyvern with one hand; she sagged against him gratefully.</p><p>“No, this is just me exploiting an excellent opportunity to be close to you.”</p>
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</div><p>An incomplete inventory of the injuries sustained by the Golden Deer division of the New Fódlan army: one broken leg; about five liters’ worth of blood loss; two cases of mild commotio; approximately twenty-five sword- or axe-wounds ranging from the not too serious to the fairly serious; between thirty and forty black magic burns; roughly ten white magic burns; one dislocated shoulder; two dislocated knees; one fractured clavicle; one distinctly hoof-shaped hematoma engendered by a wildly kicking horse (that one belonged to Raphael, who described the bruise as “painful” but its shape as “dope”). The medics and the healers stationed at Garreg Mach were, however, adept, and it didn’t take them too long to get most of the students mostly patched up. Claude spent the evening pacing outside the infirmary as the medics in charge reset Byleth’s shoulder and knitted together her wounds.</p><p>“You look anxious.” Hilda appeared in a doorway and hopped over on her crutches. The combination of a large white cast dwarfing her leg and a bandage draped just-so across her forehead conspired to make her look more adorable and more fragile than ever, if such a thing were possible. A large posse of smitten young knights trailed behind her, ready to wait on her hand and foot the moment she desired something.</p><p>“Very astute.” Claude was only barely in the mood for friends. He definitely wasn’t in the mood for a group of his friend’s admirers, sizing him up suspiciously like he was competition of some kind.</p><p>“She’s gonna be fine, you know, just like everyone else. Why are you so worried about her, anyway?” Hilda winked at Claude — clearly she knew exactly why he was worried.</p><p>“Here, have a snack,” she continued when he wouldn’t play ball. She shot a doe-eyed look the way of one of her would-be suitors; the boy scuttled forward and suddenly Claude had a large and fragrant pastry pressed into his hands.</p><p>“Uh, thanks?”</p><p>“No problem!” Hilda beamed. “It’ll make you feel better. Remember when Professor made her way out from that weird void she was in for a bit? You know there’s no way she’s ever gonna be properly beaten. At worst, she’ll turn up with a new hair color. But she will still be cute.”</p><p>In a clattering of crutches, Hilda leaned forward to kiss Claude on the cheek before she and her entourage swept past him down the hallway. He blinked down at the cinnamon roll he was now holding. Though he wasn’t going to eat it and though he just stashed it inside a pocket where it would inevitably get crushed to dust, it somehow did make him feel better.</p><p>“You can come in now.”</p><p>A nurse thrust his head out through the door to the infirmary and Claude sprang to attention. Inside the small room, Byleth was sleeping, and though Claude knew it was just that — sleeping — his stomach still dropped uncomfortably at the sight of her smooth and inert face, her body untensed. He kneeled down at her side and touched two fingers to her cheek.</p><p>“Hey, my friend,” he whispered, even though he didn’t really expect her to respond. She didn’t.</p><p>“She might be asleep for a while. Heavy-duty stuff, we gave her. Spells and tinctures.” The nurse looked very pleased with himself and his own efforts, as well he might. “Don’t wake her up if you don’t need to. Probably could do with the rest.”</p><p>“I bet.”</p><p>Claude didn’t have any intentions of waking her up, of course: he was quite happy just to kneel there, gently stroking the curve of her jaw with his thumb. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to have Byleth to himself for too long before a medic came into the infirmary with a lopsided gait, a limping soldier hanging off of her side.</p><p>“We need that bed, I’m afraid!”</p><p>The man was deposited onto a chair; the medic reached out toward the supine form of Byleth.</p><p>“Hello there, miss” she said very loudly, too loudly. Her carefully enunciated words rang through the room with monotone briskness. When Byleth didn’t react, the medic spoke even louder, like understanding was just a question of volume. “Do you think you can wa—”</p><p>“No, it’s— Here, I’ll—”</p><p>Claude pushed his arms in beneath Byleth’s body and scooped her up, holding her safe and secure against his chest like a woman carrying her new husband across the threshold in the Brigidian tradition. The medic looked a little unimpressed — she’d probably suffered through quite a bit of would-be chivalry from would-be knights in her professional life — but she just shrugged and began to tend to the wounds of the soldier on the chair.</p><p>“Cheers,” she called after the pair as they left.</p>
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</div><p>“Where do we go, my friend?”</p><p>Claude didn’t know where Byleth had set up her living quarters. Hell, who even knew where Rhea had spent her nights? He did, however, know that the Officers Academy hadn’t yet started back up, and so he chanced the second floor dormitories.</p><p>Someone had organized the books that Claude had left cluttering the bed in a neat pile at its foot; Claude sent them a silent word of thanks. The pillow and blanket looked untouched, as downy and inviting as ever. Claude very carefully set Byleth down and pulled the blanket up over her legs, then leaned back and tried to adjust to the sight of his former teacher in his boyhood bedroom, his Golden Deer sheets draped atop her. He nearly laughed: How many times had he not had to admonish himself not to fantasize about that kind of thing? Of course, in those thoughts Byleth hadn’t been close-on unconscious and his chest hadn’t been aching with just how much he wanted to protect her. The idea that she might not have been hurt so badly if he’d been there in the first place… But she’d hate him thinking that and reasoning like that. <i>Get a grip, von Riegan</i>, he commanded himself. He dispatched of his guilt and sat down next to the bed, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back against the wall.</p>
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</div><p>“Oh, honestly!”</p><p>Claude blinked, his eyelids heavy with sleep. Lysithea was standing in front of him, carrying a tray laden with food. A sandwich, some sweet buns, a mug of tea — the scent of Almyran pine needles wafted through the room, making him sit up a little straighter.</p><p>“You guys are ridiculous. Did you really sleep like that?”</p><p>Her voice was exasperated, but she couldn’t hide her smile. She swept a bunch of assorted tomes and papers off of Claude’s desk with one extended arm so that she could set down the tray there.</p><p>“You shouldn’t sleep sitting up,” she admonished when Claude shrugged his assent. “Your back will hurt and it will impact your fighting abilities. Or your studies.”</p><p>“Speaking from experience, I take it?” It didn’t take Claude too long to wake up enough to rally, grinning. “I recall hearing some cute little snores from the library all those years back. Some very, very little, <i>tiny</i> snores.” Just in case she didn’t get it, he added: “Adorable. Childlike.”</p><p>“Be quiet or I’ll eat your breakfast.”</p><p>“Whoa, whoa! In that case I’ll take it back.”</p><p>Claude stood, ready to cede the point to Lysithea — his body actually was a little bit sore — but her attention was already directed elsewhere.</p><p>“Can I get you anything, Professor?”</p><p>He scrambled around, heart in his throat. Byleth was beginning to stir, pushing herself up onto her elbows. She smiled at Lysithea and Claude in turn.</p><p>“I think I’m okay, thank you,” she said. Her voice was slightly rough from lack of use. “Maybe lunch together later?”</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Lysithea said, though she didn’t seem offended, “I can take a hint.” With a “Nice to see you again, Claude,” she was out the door.</p><p>“Does she usually bring people breakfast in bed?” Claude asked.</p><p>“Lysithea? Never. She must have just been glad to see you.” Byleth sat up in bed properly and twisted around, letting her legs dangle off the edge. “And so am I.”</p><p>Claude forgot all about eating; he even forgot about the tea, forgoing it to sit down next to Byleth. He wound his arm around her waist, her head falling onto his shoulder.</p><p>“Not as glad as I am to be here.”</p><p>They sat like that for a moment, Byleth’s face turned in against Claude’s neck and Claude’s arm pulling her closer. Just breathing; just existing in close proximity to one another, finally.</p>
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</div><p>It was almost too much to bear. Byleth moved away from Claude — he looked at her curiously.</p><p>“I really want you to kiss me,” she said, meeting his gaze. But instead of waiting for him to do anything at all, she leaned in and finally, finally touched her lips to his, after what felt like several lifetimes of longing. With a kind of half-choked gasp, Claude reached out to pull her closer, jamming her body against his, his hands on her back sliding up beneath the ragged fabric of her shirt. Byleth didn’t quite know how it happened, but suddenly she was in his lap, mouths still together. One hand in his hair, she let the other one travel across the expanse of his strong chest as he bit her lower lip, the corner of her mouth. She could feel him begin to stir beneath her and it made her shiver with want. Reaching behind her back, she took one of his hands and moved it around to her front to cup her breast. He skimmed his thumb over his nipple, before pulling away from her — she registered the cessation of their kiss as something like pain — and tilted his forehead against hers, laughing breathlessly.</p><p>“Damn, Teach. You trying to kill a fella?”</p><p>He slowly and gently began to maneuver her onto her back; she strained up towards him until their lips crushed together again. Heat pooled in the pit of Byleth’s belly as their kiss grew more and more desperate second by second, Claude’s weight on top of her shifting as he reached down to pull up her shirt.</p>
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</div><p>Marianne stepped so softly that they didn’t hear her until it was already too late.</p><p>“I’m just here to— Oh!”</p><p>Quick as a snake, Claude wheeled around and repositioned Byleth’s shirt in one smooth motion. He jumped to his feet, then immediately regretted it and sank back down onto the edge of the bed, shielding his crotch with an arm. The way Byleth’s face looked as he touched her seemed to be imprinted on his retina, taunting him as he fastened his eyes on the floor instead. Marianne, too, was studying the carpet with great interest, her head bent down as she began to shuffle back toward the door.</p><p>“Lysithea asked me to collect the tray,” she whispered before sprinting away, the neglected breakfast still cooling on Claude’s desk. He sighed.</p><p>“We may have to pick this back up later.” Claude tried not to let his reluctance enter his voice too much. “Otherwise, Lysithea will probably be coming along to yell at us.”</p><p>“Or Sylvain might come by to high five you,” Byleth agreed, sitting up.</p><p>“Yeah. Or Raphael will be here to say hello, or Hilda will come and crow that she <i>always</i> knew we’d get together.”</p><p>“Did she?” Byleth sounded amused. Claude shrugged.</p><p>“Well, that’s what she’ll say, anyway.”</p><p>“Maybe a rain check would be wise, then.”</p><p>“Yeah. But make no mistake, my friend,” Claude said, struggling very hard not to kiss her again as he, in getting to his feet, caught sight of Byleth’s face with its still-flushed cheeks and still-dazed eyes and still-parted lips, “I’ll have you to myself later. And then I’ll make up for all the time I’ve been away.”</p><p>He winked at her before striding out of the room with some misplaced sense of virtue, like he was guarding her pride by not having anyone prospectively see them exiting a bedroom together. Byleth’s laughter rang out behind him and his entire chest seemed to expand with love.</p>
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</div><p>But time together — at least alone together — was hard to find as the former house wanted to mark the occasion of their former house leader’s return with various activities and feasts throughout the day. There was a special hymnal recital in the cathedral where Lorenz, Ingrid, Petra, and Hilda sang the Almyran national anthem. Well, Hilda was blatantly lip syncing. Flayn threw an impromptu fishing competition, waxing poetic about all the ways Claude was like an ocean as he and the others took to the pier, rods in hand. Every time he stood in one place for more than a minute or so, Raphael seemed to appear to drag him off to the dining hall for meat or for snacks or, once, for meat snacks. Sometimes, rarely, he found himself alone with Byleth for long enough that he began to believe that time might be on their side, but each time a cheerful “Hey Claude!” from one of any number of people who wanted to see the new Almyran King’s return for themselves sent the two scattering away from each other with studied innocence. No, Claude had not been smirking, pushing Byleth up against a wall; of course Byleth’s hands hadn’t been grasping at his shoulders, pulling him closer and closer. They would never, or so they tried to project.</p><p>Once he came home from an evening ride with Sylvain and Leonie, though, things seemed to calm down a little. A number of people excused themselves to go off to bed. Others decided to head down to one of the pubs in town, but Claude wasn’t strong-armed into joining them. He supposed his reappearance had finally lost the sheen of newness and, frankly, that suited him just fine. He was strolling down the path that hugged the Officers Academy buildings when an arm shooting out from the open door to the disused Golden Deer classroom grabbed him and pulled him inside.</p>
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</div><p>“Would you kiss me?”</p><p>“I’m not so sure you need to ask.”</p><p>Claude reached out for Byleth and finally, finally their lips met, softly at first, then more frantic, harder. He threaded his fingers through the pale green flame of her hair, both hands, while she clasped him closer, beginning to undo he stays on his pants.</p><p>“Is this what you want?” she paused to ask, pulling away from him just a little.</p><p>“In your classroom? Well then, Teach!”</p><p>“Shut up.”</p><p>“Will you give me an A if I give you the D?”</p><p>“<i>Claude</i>. If you don’t shut up right now, you get <i>nothing</i>.”</p><p>The blackboard at the front of the room still bore the years-old dusty imprints of Byleth’s last strategy meeting and along the walls the fireplaces were (probably on Cyril’s decree) crackling away merrily; the golden-red light they threw out made Claude’s eyes glow as they narrowed with amusement. Byleth just glared back. But she didn’t maintain her protests for very long. Kneeling down in front of her, Claude hiked up her shortish skirt into a roll around her waist and pushed her thighs apart with an elbow. Her breath caught in something like a gasp.</p><p>“I’ve never done this before.”</p><p>Byleth glanced down at him, framed between her thighs. She couldn’t help but stroke her thumb down his jawline, the soft pad getting caught on his stubble.</p><p>“Really?” she said curiously. Even though she knew that Claude had had to put up with a lot of hardships from being an outsider in both his cultures, he was so handsome. It defied belief that people weren’t lining up.</p><p>“Yeah. I mean, after I returned — while you were gone all those years — I tried once or twice to… but it wasn’t, it didn’t work. It wasn’t you.”</p><p>He looked — well, maybe not <i>surprisingly</i> vulnerable at his admission, but still vulnerable — and changed the subject matter away from himself, as he’d always been wont to do.</p><p>“How about you?”</p><p>“Me?” Byleth was surprised that he’d even ask. “The full extent of my upbringing was swooping around with my father, routing bandits.”</p><p>“The Ashen Demon, the bane of criminals all across Fódlan.”</p><p>“So they say. It hardly left a lot of room for fooling around, even if I’d wanted to. Can you imagine? Having, you know, me, with my dad on the next bedroll?”</p><p>Claude half-laughed, half-winced.</p><p>“I guess you’re right. You’d have to be a braver man than me to, um, seduce the Blade Breaker’s daughter right in front of his face.” He tapped his fingers on the hard cap of her knee. “But… since then?”</p><p>“Well, then I met you. And even if I couldn’t act on it, I… How could I settle for anyone else?”</p><p>Claude didn’t exactly blush, but the tip of his nose grew a little pinker.</p><p>“It never even crossed my mind,” Byleth emphasized.</p><p>“So we’re both new at this, huh?”</p><p>“Yeah, I guess so.” Byleth shivered with want as Claude touched his lips just briefly to the side of her inner thigh and began to lick a stripe up it, toward the small silken triangle of her underwear. “But I think we’re quick learners.”</p>
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</div><p>Afterwards, they sat next to each other just in front of the fireplace, clothes half on, half off.</p><p>“Do you remember the outfit you used to wear?” Claude asked once he’d safely gotten his breath back. “With the—”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“The navel window and the hotpants and the lace tights.”</p><p>“Yeah, I remember, thank you for bringing those traumatizing memories back up. I know it looked dumb.”</p><p>“Dumb? It looked sexy.”</p><p>“Leonie told me nobody would ever take me seriously as a mercenary wearing that.” Byleth smiled at the memory. “I mean, she said she didn’t really mean it later, but she was totally right. It was dumb.”</p><p>“Nah, it was hot. Pretty distracting in class, though, Teach, I can’t lie. I could have been the best Holy Knight the Academy had ever seen but for that outfit!”</p><p>“You’re right. My deepest apologies for keeping you from achieving your long-standing white magic ambitions. If I could do it all again, I’d wear a big black sack.”</p><p>“Ah, I think you’d still be pretty distracting. That face, you know. Those lips.” Claude laughed and put his own lips to her temple, a rush of elation streaking through his body at the idea that they could just do this now, they could just touch whenever they wanted to. “But back to the outfit. Important question: Do you still have it?”</p><p>“Maybe.” Byleth turned her face and pushed it into the side of Claude’s neck. He could feel her smiling. “If you tell me why you liked it,” she said, voice muffled.</p><p>“Because it showed a lot of skin and I was 17 and hot for teacher? Didn’t leave much to the imagination, you know?”</p><p>“I should never have asked. Everyone must have thought I was—”</p><p>“I’m telling you, Teach, it was great,” Claude interrupted, refusing to let her lapse into any kind of self-admonishment. “That navel window? Made me want to kiss and lick your stomach until you were straight up begging me to…”</p><p>“To?”</p><p>At least she seemed more interested in that than in beating herself up over a years-old fashion choice. Her teeth hitched the skin of Claude’s neck and he drew in a breath, just about managing to suppress a groan as she bit him harder, kissing, sucking, leaving marks. WIth a stab of want that seemed to go straight to his cock, he swung around and took her by the shoulders, pushing her down onto the floor. He straddled her; she grabbed a fistful of his shirt fabric in her hand and pulled him closer to her.</p><p>“Beg you to what?” she prompted again, her voice higher pitched, breathless.</p><p>“Undo your shorts and peel them off, of course. Then peel your tights off.” He dragged her shirt up a little and let his finger trail down from her bellybutton. “Then—”</p><p>“Then you’d ‘use me’? As I think you once mentioned?”</p><p>She gave him a fairly ostentatious wink. Claude’s bark of laughter was surprised. And maybe a little dirty.</p><p>“No, not use you. Although now that you mention it…”</p><p>Byleth held Claude firmly in place by his shirtfront, crushing the fabric between her fingers as she lowered her head to place a feather-light kiss on his lips and then rear back. She didn’t let him return the kiss; she didn’t let him follow. He couldn’t keep himself from giving a little noise of frustration.</p><p>“Maybe I’d have used you instead,” she said, smirking.</p><p>“You say that like it’s a threat.” He shook his head. “Teach, you have a lot to learn about threatening people.”</p><p>With a laugh, Byleth released the grip she held on his shirt. Instead she began unbuttoning it.</p><p>“Is that really what you were thinking about?” she asked. “Back then?”</p><p>“Well, I tried not to think about it. So, yeah, that’s really what I was thinking about back then. All the time. Schemes and bowstrings and that sexy stomach of yours.”</p><p>“I tried not thinking about you, too.”</p><p>“Did it work?”</p><p>“Not even once. Do you know what it did to me, dancing with you at the ball?” She looked a little put out, pausing in her unbuttoning endeavors. “Your hand on my waist — I thought that alone was going to kill me. Like those swooning maidens in Flayn’s romance novels.”</p><p>“I felt the same way. But I think I’d make a very fetching swooning maiden, actually.”</p><p>“Oh, you would. You’d make a fetching anything.”</p><p>Claude made himself sound a little more serious, a little less bantery. “Not kissing you at the top of the Goddess Tower that evening took pretty much all the strength I had,” he confessed. “My wish was maybe a little more detailed than I told you.”</p><p>“Mine, too. But I guess it came true, right? I feel like I have the Goddess Tower to thank for a lot of things.”</p><p>“Don’t we all, my friend?” When Byleth didn’t continue unbuttoning his shirt, Claude took over from her. She didn’t even try to conceal the way her eyes widened as they slid across his pecs and flat stomach and he sort of loved her more for it. When she didn’t reciprocate in kind, he raised an eyebrow and prompted her: “Hey, your turn. Don’t hold out on me, now.”</p><p>At least she didn’t need second bidding. She quickly and efficiently pulled her shirt over her head and then, with only a fraction of a pause, her undershirt. Claude took her in just as unabashedly, his fingers chasing his gaze over her breasts, tracing the full low curves.</p><p>“Hot damn, Teach,” he managed. His pants were nearly off, but he kicked them off entirely. Byleth’s smallclothes were conveniently already crumpled up on the floor somewhere; her skirt could stay bunched up around her waist.</p><p>“Please,” she murmured, a pleading note in her usually commanding voice, and Claude acquiesced, somewhat at least. He stroked his fingers against her, licked them off, strained forward and grasped her nipple between his teeth, but by that point she’d had enough: with a moan that was almost a sob, she lifted her hips and eased him inside.</p><p>If it wasn’t everything Claude had ever dreamed of, it was close enough. No, no: it actually was everything Claude had ever dreamed of.</p>
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</div><p>Lorenz Hellman Gloucester would like the record to state that it was rude — inconsiderate, if not downright unconscionable — for the newly crowned couple to attend his wedding. Yes, of course he’d invited them, but how uncouth to actually show. After all, the whispers and rumors trailing around them pulled the spotlight off of his lovely bride Hilda Valentine Goneril, who in fact was so lovely and radiant and exquisite that every spotlight in the world, let alone those in the newly merged country of Fódlan-Almyra, should have been turned on her. Still, their guests would all unanimously agree that Hilda looked mesmerizing in her sweeping white velvet dress and delicate beaded cap, and Hilda herself did not seem to be at all put off by the presence of the royal couple. Multiple eye-witnesses report her hooting that she’d known all along that Claude and Byleth would be adorable together and were there crown jewels she could borrow and might Claude (“Sorry, sorry, <i>Your Majesty the King</i>”) please help her move a few armoires into her new dressing room as she was such a fragile maiden and anyway she was going on honeymoon. (Claude, laughing, was said to assent to her furniture-moving pleas.)</p><p>All the former Golden Deer were reportedly in attendance, the original crew as well as those who’d joined from different houses back before the war. Ignatz and Ingrid were a blond blur on the dancefloor — who would have guessed that that weedy little kid would grow up to have moves like that? Petra and Raphael circled the snacks table, where the food was said to be “fantastical” and “deliciousness”. Byleth danced with Sylvain while Claude whirled the beautiful bride around the room, but, even occupied, their eyes allegedly always returned to the other.</p><p>Ridiculous, Lorenz thought, and said as much, but when Ashe, starry-eyed, insisted that it was romantic, like something from an old knights’ fable, he privately agreed, and after inclining his head and smiling demurely as Lord Holst toasted the newly wedded couple, he found himself standing up at the head of the table, glass held aloft.</p><p>“To all the couples in the room.” His eyes landed on Claude and Byleth in turn, though he’d be remiss not to notice Ingrid’s hand tucked inside Sylvain’s or Marianne’s head resting on Raphael’s shoulder or Petra feeding Lysithea small bites of cake. “To a new dawn.”</p>
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